In today’s fast-paced business landscape, effective project management is essential for success. And when it comes to managing projects, Jira stands out as a powerful tool that can streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and boost productivity. Whether you’re a seasoned Jira user or just getting started, this blog post is your ultimate guide to unlocking the full potential of Jira.
Note: if you are trying out some of these actions and you don’t see such a button or functionality, it means your Jira permissions are not high enough. Bummer!
Tip 1: Use Components
Are you the person who uses the Label field for everything? The Components field is similar, but it is “fixed”, i.e. you first need to create Components in the project to be able to start using them and you can create Labels “on the fly”.
We often overuse Labels simply because we forget that Components exist and also, they need Project-level admin rights to create them.
Use components for the biggest parts of your system, such as “Frontend”, “Backend”, “API”, “DB” etc. Then you can filter your issues by components.
Tip 2: Automate Tasks
This tip cannot be emphasized enough. The number one killer of productivity is bureaucracy. Put this to a minimum with Jira automation. For that, you need elevated permissions on the Project level.
Examples:
- Move the story to Done when all subtasks are completed
- Unassign the user after an issue is moved to Done.
- Move task from In Progress to In Review when Pull Request for the task is created
- Move the task to Done when Pull Request is merged.
Learn more about it here.
Tip 3: Bulk change issues
Forgot you need to put that label on 10 issues? If possible, use the bulk action to edit or move all items in a single go.
Tip 4: Save filters for repetitive stuff
Always searching for the same issues? Save your search query as a filter! You can bookmark the URL that Jira creates, but it’s an ugly and long one. Example:
/issues/?filter=-5&jql=resolution%20in%20(Unresolved%2C%20Done%2C%20Duplicate)%20order%20by%20priority%20DESC%2Cupdated%20DESC
Filters are a way of “bookmarking” your search query inside Jira instead of you needing to do that in your browser.
Tip 4: Use Dashboards
People often overlook this feature, but especially for Project Managers, Product Managers and QAs, it can provide invaluable information. Jira offers a wide range of dashboards out of the box but you can also be creative.
Examples:
- Number of assigned tasks per user to see who is overloaded and who’s not
- Number of created vs resolved bugs
- Sprint Burndown
- Road Map
Tip 5: Use different boards
Sometimes one board can’t fit all the info that you want to see or have. You can use a Sprint board for sprint tasks, and a Kanban board for seeing all task statuses in a Workflow
Tip 6: Change the workflow
It’s ok to change something if it is bothering you. You don’t have to be stuck with a workflow that isn’t working for you. Of course, if you are allowed to change processes. If your Jira task workflow has something you don’t want or is missing a status you really need, change it! If you don’t have elevated permissions to do that, make a request to the Jira admin’s helpdesk.
Tip 7: Use the Jira API
Or better yet, use Postman to use the Jira API.
If you have some ideas to automate some tasks, or pull data into your own system of choice, you can use Postman to interact with the Jira API. Here are the docs.
Some ideas:
- Create a Jira Bug issue after failed Test Run in your CI/CD
- Upload the test results to Zephyr
